Just Who's Enlisting in the Military

Keith Olbermann's Countdown tonight reminds me of a story I read about last week, namely that white supremacist, skinheads, and neo-nazi groups, among other not-so-nice organizations, are encouraging their members to join "this man's army" for free military training. Now the Southern Poverty Law Center says that these undesirables are beginning to account for a growingly significant number of new recruits.

Now, many in the military are saying this is no problemo but I'm afraid I disagree. I guess the message is that Rumsfeld is so damned desperate for warm bodies to meet recruitment numbers - remember, we're sending grandmothers and grandmothers into forced active duty and never before have we had so many people OVER the age of 50 serving overseas - he'll take anyone.

But is just anyone going to cut it? Aren't we going to have more problems if we just send whoever will show up? I can't help but think of the murder of the raped 14-year-old girl and her young brothers and rest of the family now causing so much upset in Iraq.

I'm also reminded of one of my brothers who, after doing lovely things like tying me up and trying to set fire to me when I wasn't even old enough to start school, was quickly accepted to fight in Vietnam when more than one shrink had said he should never have access to any weapons whatsoever. He really liked serving in the war, he said. I've always wondered what he did over there. It still bothers me.